Star Wars:Ascension
by Overload11
Summary: A large amount of time after the Rebellion victory over the Empire has passed and the galaxy is, once again barely holding itself together. T just in case


**Hello everyone. This is only the prologue of the story that I've begun to write but I'd like some reviews before I decide whether I should continue. Quite a bit of it is down on paper so I'll have to type the rest before I put it on. Well, I hope it's okay :-P**

Thrak was looking at the caverns when they came…

The high pitched noise that Thrak recognized as the whine of a fighter's engine caught his attention. It was coming in hot, too fast for a safe landing. Thrak watched in awe from the mouth of a cave as the pilot executed a three-point turn and then splashed into the swamp that covered most of the planet of Dagobah. The muddy water seemed to explode as the searing hot spacecraft plunged into its depths.

Thrak didn't know what had happened to the pilot but he was going to find out. Slightly nervous, he ran from the mouth of the cave he had been exploring to investigate. Thrak got almost to the swamps edge when he heard coughing.

"Blasted Sith will take a shot at anyone" a voice said from beneath the smoking ship. Thrak was sure that it was a male voice and he scanned the wreckage for a figure and was shocked when he saw two.

They looked like Republic soldiers. One was clearly the pilot; he had his orange jumpsuit on and his pilot's helmet. Both articles were smattered with mud and algae, but underneath Thrak could see the red insignia of the New Republic. The other had to be a Jedi. Thrak had heard stories about them from his father and he matched the description, save the mud. He did not stand tall, but he seemed to possess an aura of peace and power. He was garbed in a simple robe and possessed a lightsaber at his belt. His brown hair was cut short and he had a straggly beard to match. Thrak was suddenly afraid of being seen and he ducked into the soaking undergrowth, ignoring the odd, steadily increasing sense that something bad was going to happen.

"Yeah, I know" another voice agreed, Thrak could tell that that was the pilot. "Now we're stuck on this backwater planet with no way out." The pilot attempted and failed to clean off his suit, only getting it more dirty as he wiped it with his filthy gloves.

"Peace Milx" the Jedi said, sitting down on a nearby rock. "I'm sure there's someone here who can help us." Milx gave him a skeptical look.

"Yeah right" the pilot snorted. "I bet no civilized person has lived here in millennia." The Jedi stood up and clasped his hand on Milx's shoulder, the pilot immediately seemed visibly calmer.

"If there is anyone here, then I can find them." The Jedi frowned as if in concentration, taking his hand off Milx's shoulder.

"Well?" The pilot asked impatiently after a minute or so. "We have to be back to Coruscant in seven standard hours! We'll never be able to give our report!" Milx spun around and promptly fell face forward in the thick mud, which obscured his curses.

Thrak gave an inaudible gasp. These men _were_ from the Republic! He had barely left Dagobah himself but he had heard reports of heroic Republic deeds and victories against marauding pirates and the evil Sith. Thrak was intelligent and knew that they had most likely greatly exaggerated but that did not prevent him from being awed by their mere presence.

"Our report can wait a day or so" The Jedi said, breaking free of his trance, not noticing the sprawled from of Milx, half submerged in the swamp. The pilot seemed to hear the Jedi, for he made a valiant effort to rise (which he did), now completely covered in mud and in an even worse mood. The Jedi went on, unperturbed by the now perceptible curses of Milx. "There are two people several miles from here who might be able to help us"

The pilot scoffed "Yeah right Baldor, anybody that would live in this dump would want nothing to do with the Republic; why else would anyone live here?" Thrak smiled in spite of himself, the pilot had described his parents with unerring detail.

Baldor had no answer to that question, but he responded "The Force brought us here for a reason Milx, to assume otherwise would be the height of folly" at this, Milx actually laughed

"If your mystical 'Force' brought us here for a reason, it would only be to show us how much trouble we're in. I mean, we can't even deliver a blasted report without being shot down or whatever the space happened to us." Baldor just shook his head, as if he was used to Milx's skepticism.

"Let's just go, it's worth a shot at least." Baldor walked off, to where Thrak sat hidden. Milx took one last sad look at the wrecked ship and followed the Jedi, taking out his blaster for easy access. Baldor continued to make towards Thrak's hiding place until he was just about level with it. He was so close that Thrak could only see his feet, though he could hear his breathing and smell the stench of the swamp on him. At the Jedi's close presence, something in Thrak seemed to uncoil. Immediately, Thrak's mind cleared and his senses were heightened abnormally. He knew that Milx was struggling to catch up with the Jedi, he could hear the pilot's heart beat, could hear Baldor's lungs filling and emptying, he could see the miniscule tears on the Jedi's boots, but most of all, Thrak was filled with a sense of power. It cleansed him, replacing his fear with anger.

As if sensing this outburst of power, Baldor stopped walking at once. His eyes darted to Thrak's hiding place and he pulled out his lightsaber. Thrak could feel the Jedi's eyes on him; he knew that he was there somehow. As if to confirm his belief, the Jedi pulled the underbrush away, revealing the kneeling form of Thrak. Milx had now caught up with Baldor and catching sight of the boy, lowered his blaster.

"What's got you concerned, Baldor?" the pilot asked, but got no response from the now stone-faced Jedi. Thrak sat there, in his kneeling position unable to move. The power that he had possessed seconds ago had deserted him, leaving a violent terror in its wake. He looked up at the Jedi and saw his eyes, cold, hard, and calculating, momentarily stunned but not for long.

As quick as his cramped legs would allow, Thrak rose from the ground and attempted to flee into the cavern that he came from. "Hey!" the pilot yelled leveling his blaster and setting it to stun. "Hey! Come back here!" Thrak did not heed Milx and he dodged the ensuing bolts that followed. The pilot turned to Baldor who remained in the position he was first in, though following the Thrak's progress with his eyes. "Baldor!" the pilot shouted "Why is he running?" As if in answer, the Jedi ignited his violet lightsaber and pursued the boy. Thrak knew it was hopeless to run, he had no chance of making it to the cave but he tried anyway. His feet pounded a frantic beat on the marshy surface as he desperately sprinted.

In less than a minute, the Jedi had Thrak around the neck, the hilt of his now off lightsaber pressed against his back. Thrak's heart thundered inside his chest as an unidentified fear shook his body, though he did not struggle against Baldor's grasp "Do not presume to run from us _Sith_ the Jedi hissed"

"W-What did you call me?" Thrak breathed, his lungs struggling to inflate and replenish his depleted oxygen. At his question, Baldor shook him ferociously and screamed.

"Do not lie to me _Sith_" he spat the last word out. "For what reason are you here?" He shook him again, so hard that Thrak felt that his neck would snap.

"I live here" Thrak said "My family and I, we've been on Dagobah since I was a baby. I don't even know what a Sith _is_"

"LIAR!" Baldor screamed, throwing Thrak away from him, where he landed in a puddle of water. Milx came running over and held Baldor back from attacking Thrak. Baldor struggled vainly against the pilot, but Milx managed to keep him away.

"What's got you worked up Baldor?" Milx yelled as the Jedi continued to struggle. Baldor's face was turning red from the effort of trying to break the pilot's grip.

"He's a _Sith_" Baldor spat "He'll kill us all!" Milx looked over at Thrak, while still keeping Baldor away.

"He's just a _boy_" Milx said, though with some doubt in his voice. "He wasn't doing us any harm."

"LIES!" Baldor yelled and blasted Milx away. The pilot flew, as if pushed magically away from the Jedi. He landed twenty feet away, stopped abruptly by a tree.

Free of Milx, Baldor ignited his lightsaber and made for Thrak, a look of anger on his face. Thrak's heart hammered violently in his chest. Fear surged inside him, one of the last feelings he would experience. What had he done to deserve this? Thrak raised his arm in a vain attempt to stop the Jedi's lightsaber.

"NO!" he screamed as Baldor swung down upon him. Thrak shut his eyes and as he did, he felt a subtle draining of his energy, no doubt the beginning of the immense depletion he would soon feel as the lightsaber found something vital.

When no stroke fell, Thrak opened his eyes and was momentarily stunned. The Jedi lay a hundred feet from him, but he couldn't be alive. His legs were splayed at all the wrong angles and his tongue lolled out of his mouth. Seemingly at his glance, what was once Baldor began to break apart. His body seemed to shimmer as if seen through water. His tan robe blew in a nonexistent wind. Thrak felt a subtle change in the swampy planet as Baldor's body appeared to turn to dust and blow away, scattering itself on the lonely planet of Dagobah.

Thrak could only stare unseeing at the spot where the broken Jedi had laid seconds before. Questions flew through his head without the expectation of answers. What had he done? His eyes had been closed but he knew he was somehow responsible for the Jedi's death.

'_It was his fault, not mine'_ Thrak thought as he continued to search the spot for answers. If the Jedi had not tried to kill him he would surely still be alive. He had been completely out of control, or perhaps he was insane. He had certainly seemed it; he practically frothed at the mouth when he sensed Thrak's presence.

'_But why though?'_ Why did he get upset in the first place? As if at his thought, Baldor's proclamation of Thrak as a 'Sith' rang in his ears. He would've dispelled this inexplicable event as a dream, and maybe it was, but Thrak never dreamed of his life here on this isolated planet. He assumed his brain had enough of it in his waking moments and didn't need to dwell on it while he was asleep too. No, Thrak always had queer dreams, unexplainable ones of things he had never seen or even heard of. Often he would awake, sweating in the night as an endless fleet stretched towards the capital of the galaxy with the word 'destruction 'on their lips; or even worse, the dream where _he_ led the army, with blood on his hands and madness in his eyes as they pillaged and burned and murdered.

Thrak was definitely not dreaming now, he almost knew it for a fact. The planet around him was very real, he could smell the familiar swamp, feel his sodden clothes as they clung to his body. No, this was no dream, this was real, and this was scary.


End file.
